lvl99 Pixel
Member
why is that even relevant?
of all the things that could make you question plausibility, i don't think that's a major one.
-
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Complete Breath of the Wild critique from a Game Dev perspective
- Thread starter thomasmahler
- Start date
why is that even relevant?
of all the things that could make you question plausibility, i don't think that's a major one.
Astral Dog
Member
In Zelda? The reception has been mixed at best. But consider that Legend of Zelda is a series that puts gameplay first over plot or cinematics.
I think BotW has some of the most lively towns of the generation with charming characters and dialogue,the music takes second place to the overworld but its high quality.
The story won't grab you unless you collect all the memories over Hyrule and thats not easy to do. You can go directly to the final boss in the first few hours.
Its a game about exploring,its a game without hand holding,you create your own story.and thats BoTW biggest quality.
though if you are a fan of linear plot progression you may find it dissapointing or barebones.
Completely disagree with your analysis of the open world, traversal options, fast traversal, and size. It's perfect in this game.
I do very much agree on your other complaints. Shrines especially. There's no reason they should all look the same and be independent from the region they're in. It feels rushed.
I do very much agree on your other complaints. Shrines especially. There's no reason they should all look the same and be independent from the region they're in. It feels rushed.
piratepwnsninja
Member
Yeah. I've been doing game design for over a decade, over half of that on open world games. I actually agree with some of the critique here, but one thing I greatly caution others against is conflating personal preference with an objective flaw. Especially when someone says, "I don't generally like X, and this is how it could be better." When couched that way, personal tastes are definitely coloring your feedback.
However, this isn't to say there isn't merit in thinking one could do better. By all means, if someone doesn't like the way something is done they are more than free to try out their own ideas in that space. But again, that doesn't necessarily make another design poor/incorrect/flawed, and I despise the subtle belittling and arrogance in those types of statements, even if unintentional.
The Third Heat
Neo Member
This analysis was great, but I disagree on many of its points. Korok puzzles are great fun as a cool side thing to do as you go (and as a way to mark where you've been on your map without wasting stamps). Empty spaces make the less empty spaces stand out more and guide your focus. See a gaggle of trees? Go there and you may find something! It's like the oasis in the distance: if you weren't surrounded by desert, you probably wouldn't check it out.
Well I think contextually there is a good story reason, being that they were created to serve a utilitarian purpose (
). But I also agree. I'd have loved for the shrines to be different, but I get why they did it for both world-building reasons and even practical, developer reasons (create a unified design scheme that almost any puzzle could fit into).
But it should be said that there is one shrine in particular near
that does have
, so it's not like they didn't try.
Well I think contextually there is a good story reason, being that they were created to serve a utilitarian purpose (
test the "hero", prove his worth
But it should be said that there is one shrine in particular near
Death Mountain
lava in it
I have to agree with this statement. One problem I have with Fallout 4 is it is too condensed. I wish it did have some "white space". I don't want less content in it, I want things to be a little more spread out except In the urban areas where it makes more sense to be condensed. With everything right next to everything else it starts feeling theme parkish and it kinda tears away at my immersion. I want the world to feel like a real world, not a theme park made just to entertain me. And I like the feeling of traveling the open world, it's one reason I prefer open worlds (I refuse to even use fast travel).
I think the biggest issue i have with the shrines is the difficulty. I understand Nintendo kept them simple because of an any shrine could be a players first shrine philosophy. Yet i cant help but think the game would be better off if shrines were split into 3 or 4 difficulty tiers and each tier was colour coded.
Players would still approach them the same way, and fast travel would still work the same way. However the increased challenge of say 30 x Level 1 Shrines, 30 Level 2 shrines, 30 Level 3 Shrines and 30 level 4 Shrines vs 120 Level 1.5 shrines seems a worthy payoff.
ProfessorLobo
Banned
Which of the side quests would you describe as cool and which of the side npcs would you describe as interesting? I was super happy to find that fishing town in the middle of game, only to realize that the only thing there was an inn and a lame casino. I felt that n64 hyrule had way more going on, but maybe that's just nostalgia.
J
Jpop
Unconfirmed Member
It is Nostalgia.
For me the flaws that stand out are:
Things I would have liked to see improved/different after having poured in over 70 hours would be:
- lack of depth in the story that also lacks a sense of emotional progression
- some poor menu navigation design
- slight performance issues
Things I would have liked to see improved/different after having poured in over 70 hours would be:
- greater enemy variety
- a few more category of things to collect that relate to sidequests or upgrades beyond spirit orbs and korok seeds
- greater variety of animals I can mount and tame (I really wanted Yakul in this game)
LurkerPrime
Member
I'm not a dev or anything, but I also feel there's merit to empty space in video games. Like, there can't be a reward underneath every rock, on top of every hill, or hidden behind every obstacle or else it becomes predictable. When a reward is predictable, it ceases to be rewarding; it becomes busywork in the way of a goal, where travelling is a task list rather than an adventure. In other words, absence enhances reward.
BotW is so incredible because it is constantly breaking expectations and varying up the experience. And it is so remarkable because it succeeds. It is the first open world where every step feels like a hand-crafted level, giving players their own intensely personal adventures.
Also, I just want to say this is a great thread. Seeing dev perspectives is always fascinating.
BotW is so incredible because it is constantly breaking expectations and varying up the experience. And it is so remarkable because it succeeds. It is the first open world where every step feels like a hand-crafted level, giving players their own intensely personal adventures.
Also, I just want to say this is a great thread. Seeing dev perspectives is always fascinating.
There's definitely merit to empty space, especially when the aim is to balance the beauty of the world with the fun, gameplay aspects of the world. The Game Informer developers chat about BOTW talks about this. Density is a huge question to consider for open world games and striking that balance of always having interesting things somewhat nearby while also not "gamifying" the open world too much where there are too many coins and items nearby. For me, this game gets that balance just right. It's clear Nintendo playtested the hell out of this game both to maximize player enjoyment and for QA which is almost flawless.
And to add one more wrinkle to this discussion:
I haven't finished the whole game yet, but I feel pike the entirity of the approach to Zora's Domain has been more expertly designed and engaging than the vast majority of linear games out there.
And it only works that well because it exists within the context of a gigantic land. The "no empty spaces" philosophy would have turned this whole 2-hour trek into just yet another level in yet another game with regular dungeons.
I love those! Hell, they were my preferred types of games. I thought The Witcher 3 was largely unremarkable. Open worlds never quite did it for me.
Until now.
I haven't finished the whole game yet, but I feel pike the entirity of the approach to Zora's Domain has been more expertly designed and engaging than the vast majority of linear games out there.
And it only works that well because it exists within the context of a gigantic land. The "no empty spaces" philosophy would have turned this whole 2-hour trek into just yet another level in yet another game with regular dungeons.
I love those! Hell, they were my preferred types of games. I thought The Witcher 3 was largely unremarkable. Open worlds never quite did it for me.
Until now.
That one struck me as well: They must've play tested this to hell and back, as I've yet to come across an area that feels in any way unpolished or unfinished. Even a system that sounds offensively intrusive at face value like weapon breaking is pretty much perfectly balanced, if you learn how to play the game. Meaning to treat close combat weapons like disposable ammunition rather than itemized player-overattachment. You start to see how the game was build to provide you with the ammunition you need.
Edit: Minor niggles, like the inventory management being not perfect persist. It still works perfectly fine though and we're complaining about an optimization potential within the range of some seconds for repeated tasks like changing between clothing sets here.
My number one complaint is the size as well. Im not a fan of empty pockets in open world games unless they're being used for large epic battles, was designed that way for a puzzle, or serve some sort of purpose of being big.
Here's my question: To those who like huge empty spaces would you care or mind if they weren't there?
I ask this because I really want to weigh the scale here.
Here's my question: To those who like huge empty spaces would you care or mind if they weren't there?
I ask this because I really want to weigh the scale here.
Hey Thomas,
I'll first preface this by stating this is only my opinion, and I'm saying this with all due respect, as I greatly appreciate the work you did on Ori and I'm looking forward to what's next.
I also hope this won't feel/read as a personal attack, even though many of these comments are about personal attitude and viewpoints (or what I understand and perceive as such)
With that said, I believe you're approaching all of this with the wrong mindset as evident from your OP and following replies since (also, your Hollow Knight comments), and you're not trying to analyze your experience as designer trying to learn from the game, but rather a player forcing your own design thoughts and looking at what doesn't work according to your own expectations.
First, I'm impressed that after barely two weeks, you've already completed the game with all shrines, all memories and most sidequests. I don't know how many hours you've played, but that still means you must have played for an extensive amount of time over a very short period, which is, in my eyes, doing in huge disservice for most games, and something we as critics should take the time to consider when discussing game experiences. To make a crude metaphor: I feel you're complaining about the taste of a glass of wine after having gulped the entirety of it in a single swallowing motion. Somebody earlier in the thread made an analogy about slow rhythm films, and I'd go one further and say playing this game (as many others) too much over too little time would be like binge watching slow movies. Of course you're not going to appreciate their rhythm with that cadence of viewing, that's not what they were built for. We as players have a tendancy to obsess over consuming the content offered to us in as little time as possible, and I feel it's doing a disservice to the medium at large not to consider what that kind of (excessive?) consumption means. In essence, I'd argue going too fast to play a game, any game, isn't enjoying it, it's "gobbling it up", and you most likely lose some of the finer tastes along the way. (For reference, as much as I love Ori, I can't really bear to play it more than a couple hours at a time before it becomes "samey" and starts repeating motions and patterns, even with all your "fun per inch" design considerations).
About those design considerations, then: I feel by trying to tie everything to those principles, you're not trying to understand why the game is built how it is, and rather try to analyze it through the lens of your own design principles. While there's certainly worth in doing that to determine if you'll like it as a player, I don't think that's a worthy design critique, and you'd be much better served and likely learn much more trying to understand what they were going for, and how they went to achieve that goal (and critique based on *that*, rather than what you would do/hoped to see yourself). I won't go over the lengthy explanations about the different player experiences on exploration and the ratio of content in the world nor Miyamotot's stated intentions, as I feel they've been sufficiently covered in the thread.
In the end, I'd say to critique any game from a design standpoint, one should consider first and foremost the original intent, and the way/context it's played as a big coloring factor. By trying to force the lens of your own design principles, you're effectively doing the same thing as those who cry that walking simulator aren't games, because they don't obey the same core principles they feel define "games". Does this Zelda fit your "fun per inch" mold? It most certainly does not in the sense you've explained it. Is that important in the context of what they were going for and the feelings they were trying to convey? If anything, I'd argue doing that would have done the opposite, and turned their Hyrule into an artificial theme park, to reuse your comparison. You pretend when playing this game, one pushes the same direction at a time and doing nothing. In my own 20-30h with it so far (already something I find borderline excessive), nothing could have been further from the truth, as I keep deviating from the path for all sorts of reasons - something I likely wouldn't do if I were playing for hours at a time, simply by virtue of how patience works.
I agree with some of your more detailed systemic observations, most notably those about UI (even though I'd argue, for instance, that pausing the game while swapping weapons actually makes the game playable for a great many that wouldn't be able to otherwise - the problem isn't that the game is paused, it's more about the button layout used and the presentation of it - again, we need to critique based on what we can determine the intent to be, not what we as gamers/consumers want).
If we expect a better kind of critique for our own works, we as designers need to try to be better critics ourselves, and an argument of "one design fits all" goes contrary to that (along with ignoring intent, context, etc). I feel most of your arguments stem from you trying to fit your design ethics on a game which fundamentally rejects them. It's not built as you would, and thankfully so, because that means both have reason to exist, and we can look forward to your own take on things - which will not have more or less merit than this one!
EDIT: for reference and just so this post isn't me complaining about complaints, here are some of my own game complaints (let's be generous and call them critiques) so far, though I haven't finished the game yet, so those are subject to change:
-for a game that I feel aims to offer a "freeform" experience where you can go anywhere, anytime, I feel it tries too hard to railroad the player into doing the Zora donjon/beast first, as out of the three I've done, it's the closest to the initial main quests (which you're also strongly encouraged to do as they unlock some "necessary" equipment, such as the camera and introduce quasi-necessary concepts like the Great Fairy and the Korok Seed exchanger - if you skip Kakariko on a new game, you're basically gimping yourself unnecessarily for a long while and I don't see that as a choice where "every direction is equivalent" but rather "you can choose to skip the handrails we put for you at your own risk, enjoy your limited inventory for longer that you're initially meant to"). The Zora questline is also the most developed/structured so far out of Zora/Goron/Rito, whereas others simply build off this existing structure (most notably, the Rito dungeon buildup)
-I also feel the menu use is a bit excessive - I don't see a way around it considering how useful the different armor pieces are, but I'd likely have added "quick swap options" to go back to set custom outfits, since we're meant to swap often, and added another shortcut button to swap menu pages without going over each section's pages (right stick on switch is supposed to do that, but it still goes over every ingredient/meal page, when you might want to swap directly from armor to, say, meals)
-I also echo the arrow shortage feeling, since they're the most versatile and useful tool around - you can easily farm them at the entrance to the Zora domain (another reason why the Zora domain is strongly hinted at first?), but I'd have taken other options to get arrows, the main one being "crafting them at campfires" as that feels the most in theme with the rest and would have given another reason to light campfires (so far, I don't really do that except to melt iceblocks)
-I see what they were going for with the rain, and heavy rainfall can be an interesting obstacle to overcome and force you to rethink your approach, but those random 5s rainfalls that only serve to get you to slip once are a bit much :-D
-I also hate with a passion the gyro puzzles as I feel they're woefully out of place and feel gimmicky and clash with the "many ways to solve every puzzle" ethics of the rest of the game, but that may also be because I suck at them :v
I'll first preface this by stating this is only my opinion, and I'm saying this with all due respect, as I greatly appreciate the work you did on Ori and I'm looking forward to what's next.
I also hope this won't feel/read as a personal attack, even though many of these comments are about personal attitude and viewpoints (or what I understand and perceive as such)
With that said, I believe you're approaching all of this with the wrong mindset as evident from your OP and following replies since (also, your Hollow Knight comments), and you're not trying to analyze your experience as designer trying to learn from the game, but rather a player forcing your own design thoughts and looking at what doesn't work according to your own expectations.
First, I'm impressed that after barely two weeks, you've already completed the game with all shrines, all memories and most sidequests. I don't know how many hours you've played, but that still means you must have played for an extensive amount of time over a very short period, which is, in my eyes, doing in huge disservice for most games, and something we as critics should take the time to consider when discussing game experiences. To make a crude metaphor: I feel you're complaining about the taste of a glass of wine after having gulped the entirety of it in a single swallowing motion. Somebody earlier in the thread made an analogy about slow rhythm films, and I'd go one further and say playing this game (as many others) too much over too little time would be like binge watching slow movies. Of course you're not going to appreciate their rhythm with that cadence of viewing, that's not what they were built for. We as players have a tendancy to obsess over consuming the content offered to us in as little time as possible, and I feel it's doing a disservice to the medium at large not to consider what that kind of (excessive?) consumption means. In essence, I'd argue going too fast to play a game, any game, isn't enjoying it, it's "gobbling it up", and you most likely lose some of the finer tastes along the way. (For reference, as much as I love Ori, I can't really bear to play it more than a couple hours at a time before it becomes "samey" and starts repeating motions and patterns, even with all your "fun per inch" design considerations).
About those design considerations, then: I feel by trying to tie everything to those principles, you're not trying to understand why the game is built how it is, and rather try to analyze it through the lens of your own design principles. While there's certainly worth in doing that to determine if you'll like it as a player, I don't think that's a worthy design critique, and you'd be much better served and likely learn much more trying to understand what they were going for, and how they went to achieve that goal (and critique based on *that*, rather than what you would do/hoped to see yourself). I won't go over the lengthy explanations about the different player experiences on exploration and the ratio of content in the world nor Miyamotot's stated intentions, as I feel they've been sufficiently covered in the thread.
In the end, I'd say to critique any game from a design standpoint, one should consider first and foremost the original intent, and the way/context it's played as a big coloring factor. By trying to force the lens of your own design principles, you're effectively doing the same thing as those who cry that walking simulator aren't games, because they don't obey the same core principles they feel define "games". Does this Zelda fit your "fun per inch" mold? It most certainly does not in the sense you've explained it. Is that important in the context of what they were going for and the feelings they were trying to convey? If anything, I'd argue doing that would have done the opposite, and turned their Hyrule into an artificial theme park, to reuse your comparison. You pretend when playing this game, one pushes the same direction at a time and doing nothing. In my own 20-30h with it so far (already something I find borderline excessive), nothing could have been further from the truth, as I keep deviating from the path for all sorts of reasons - something I likely wouldn't do if I were playing for hours at a time, simply by virtue of how patience works.
I agree with some of your more detailed systemic observations, most notably those about UI (even though I'd argue, for instance, that pausing the game while swapping weapons actually makes the game playable for a great many that wouldn't be able to otherwise - the problem isn't that the game is paused, it's more about the button layout used and the presentation of it - again, we need to critique based on what we can determine the intent to be, not what we as gamers/consumers want).
If we expect a better kind of critique for our own works, we as designers need to try to be better critics ourselves, and an argument of "one design fits all" goes contrary to that (along with ignoring intent, context, etc). I feel most of your arguments stem from you trying to fit your design ethics on a game which fundamentally rejects them. It's not built as you would, and thankfully so, because that means both have reason to exist, and we can look forward to your own take on things - which will not have more or less merit than this one!
EDIT: for reference and just so this post isn't me complaining about complaints, here are some of my own game complaints (let's be generous and call them critiques) so far, though I haven't finished the game yet, so those are subject to change:
-for a game that I feel aims to offer a "freeform" experience where you can go anywhere, anytime, I feel it tries too hard to railroad the player into doing the Zora donjon/beast first, as out of the three I've done, it's the closest to the initial main quests (which you're also strongly encouraged to do as they unlock some "necessary" equipment, such as the camera and introduce quasi-necessary concepts like the Great Fairy and the Korok Seed exchanger - if you skip Kakariko on a new game, you're basically gimping yourself unnecessarily for a long while and I don't see that as a choice where "every direction is equivalent" but rather "you can choose to skip the handrails we put for you at your own risk, enjoy your limited inventory for longer that you're initially meant to"). The Zora questline is also the most developed/structured so far out of Zora/Goron/Rito, whereas others simply build off this existing structure (most notably, the Rito dungeon buildup)
-I also feel the menu use is a bit excessive - I don't see a way around it considering how useful the different armor pieces are, but I'd likely have added "quick swap options" to go back to set custom outfits, since we're meant to swap often, and added another shortcut button to swap menu pages without going over each section's pages (right stick on switch is supposed to do that, but it still goes over every ingredient/meal page, when you might want to swap directly from armor to, say, meals)
-I also echo the arrow shortage feeling, since they're the most versatile and useful tool around - you can easily farm them at the entrance to the Zora domain (another reason why the Zora domain is strongly hinted at first?), but I'd have taken other options to get arrows, the main one being "crafting them at campfires" as that feels the most in theme with the rest and would have given another reason to light campfires (so far, I don't really do that except to melt iceblocks)
-I see what they were going for with the rain, and heavy rainfall can be an interesting obstacle to overcome and force you to rethink your approach, but those random 5s rainfalls that only serve to get you to slip once are a bit much :-D
-I also hate with a passion the gyro puzzles as I feel they're woefully out of place and feel gimmicky and clash with the "many ways to solve every puzzle" ethics of the rest of the game, but that may also be because I suck at them :v
What I was saying is that I probably would rather not have combat trials than have more intricate ones. Although your example sounds better that what I envisioned in my head when I said it wouldn't be better.
No you don't. At least not for "early adopters" and people who aren't willing to pay for an upgrade.Hey, I don't think Fast Travel is the root of all evil - We actually have fast travel in Ori, which is a much shorter experience
That's a fantastic way of putting it.
That could be mitigated by only firing the more complex dialog after you press + when it tells you can't pick the item up. And personally I would just keep the same layout as the one in the game but with the new weapon on top and a "replace" prompt.
thomasmahler
Member
Hey Pehesse,
Appreciate that comment and I get what you're going for, but I don't think what you're stating is quite true to what I experienced.
First off, I didn't rush through the game (like probably many reviewers were). I actually had a nice little 5-day vacation in Norway lined up with the release of Zelda and got to put a crap ton of hours into the game thanks to that (apparently over 100 hours over the last 2 weeks) - I didn't rush, I just really enjoyed my time playing through the game, put it away when I was bored and picked it up again once I felt like playing more Zelda, etc. - But that's also why the flaws are so apparent in my head.
My critique mostly stems from some weird design decisions that enforced constant repetition as well as it being an open world game. Make no mistake, I LOVED Breath of the Wild. It's a great, great game, I'd give it a 9 out of 10 and I'm usually very critical with games (which is kind of my job), but were there things that I'd like to see improved in a sequel? Absolutely, a whole ton of them!
Honestly, I can't understand how after you having put 30 hours into the game, you haven't experienced a lot of the dreaded "I just have to walk 10 minutes into this direction..." feeling - But I'm certain you'll get that feeling once you put another 10-20 hours in. The world is huge and there are absolutely lots of spaces that are completely barren and the traversal mechanics never really change all that much. Yes, you get that Super Jump, but your'e mostly still running and climbing, running and climbing while constantly watching your stamina meter. I assure you the game would've been more fun if Nintendo would've put in a few more cool movement mechanics like a hookshot, since my time in the field would've been more varied. Or flying - Let me fly through the world instead of just gliding. With a huge world, the more ways I have to traverse it, the more fun it is!
That running and climbing loop over samey terrain is all over Breath of the Wild and I'm arguing that that in itself isn't the most amount of fun you could have playing a game. I've recently been playing a hell of a lot of Zelda (ALTTP, Zelda 1, ALBW) and you just don't get that kinda 'padded out' feeling with these games. That's the trope of open world games and nobody has ever been able to shake that feeling with this terrain-based approach to level design, not even Nintendo.
And I'm not opposed to large worlds. I'm a huge fan of Minecraft, which by nature doesn't have a designed world, but you can interact with absolutely everything in that world, you're constantly engaged with the world, you never really have spots where you're just holding the analog stick forward without the possibility of interactivity due to the nature of that game. Well designed interactivity is what games are all about - Once you have spots in your game where your brain isn't engaged at all, where all you do is moving forward, you're creating a somewhat boring experience. And I fully understand that people like exploration and all that, but you can't deny that an increased amount of interactivity always helps. Otherwise, why would Nintendo have spent the last 2 years or so filling in that world with interactivity as much as they possibly could? They could've left the world even more open, so you'd get 'even more to explore!' - But an empty world isn't fun to explore (= No Man's Sky and other open world games), so their mission was to pack the game as full of fun stuff as they possibly could. And for the size of that world, they still missed the mark, at least that's what I felt after playing the game, that's all
Hey Pehesse,
Appreciate that comment and I get what you're going for, but I don't think what you're stating is quite true to what I experienced.
First off, I didn't rush through the game (like probably many reviewers were). I actually had a nice little 5-day vacation in Norway lined up with the release of Zelda and got to put a crap ton of hours into the game thanks to that (apparently over 100 hours over the last 2 weeks) - I didn't rush, I just really enjoyed my time playing through the game, put it away when I was bored and picked it up again once I felt like playing more Zelda, etc. - But that's also why the flaws are so apparent in my head.
My critique mostly stems from some weird design decisions that enforced constant repetition as well as it being an open world game. Make no mistake, I LOVED Breath of the Wild. It's a great, great game, I'd give it a 9 out of 10 and I'm usually very critical with games (which is kind of my job), but were there things that I'd like to see improved in a sequel? Absolutely, a whole ton of them!
Honestly, I can't understand how after you having put 30 hours into the game, you haven't experienced a lot of the dreaded "I just have to walk 10 minutes into this direction..." feeling - But I'm certain you'll get that feeling once you put another 10-20 hours in. The world is huge and there are absolutely lots of spaces that are completely barren and the traversal mechanics never really change all that much. Yes, you get that Super Jump, but your'e mostly still running and climbing, running and climbing while constantly watching your stamina meter. I assure you the game would've been more fun if Nintendo would've put in a few more cool movement mechanics like a hookshot, since my time in the field would've been more varied. Or flying - Let me fly through the world instead of just gliding. With a huge world, the more ways I have to traverse it, the more fun it is!
That running and climbing loop over samey terrain is all over Breath of the Wild and I'm arguing that that in itself isn't the most amount of fun you could have playing a game. I've recently been playing a hell of a lot of Zelda (ALTTP, Zelda 1, ALBW) and you just don't get that kinda 'padded out' feeling with these games. That's the trope of open world games and nobody has ever been able to shake that feeling with this terrain-based approach to level design, not even Nintendo.
And I'm not opposed to large worlds. I'm a huge fan of Minecraft, which by nature doesn't have a designed world, but you can interact with absolutely everything in that world, you're constantly engaged with the world, you never really have spots where you're just holding the analog stick forward without the possibility of interactivity due to the nature of that game. Well designed interactivity is what games are all about - Once you have spots in your game where your brain isn't engaged at all, where all you do is moving forward, you're creating a somewhat boring experience. And I fully understand that people like exploration and all that, but you can't deny that an increased amount of interactivity always helps. Otherwise, why would Nintendo have spent the last 2 years or so filling in that world with interactivity as much as they possibly could? They could've left the world even more open, so you'd get 'even more to explore!' - But an empty world isn't fun to explore (= No Man's Sky and other open world games), so their mission was to pack the game as full of fun stuff as they possibly could. And for the size of that world, they still missed the mark, at least that's what I felt after playing the game, that's all
Hey, appreciate the reply after my wall of text, thanks a lot
I have mainly two points of response:
That's kind of the thing... I'm absolutely not planning to! I consider "completing" this sort of game a fool's errand, in the same vein that rushing all achievements in a game often is - the point of having all that content (IMHO) isn't to get it all done in the shortest timeframe possible (it CAN be, it's just not all there is), it's also there to offer different experiences for players going in different directions, and offer reasons to go back way down the line. I mean, of course some are going to go for it all in a single playthrough, but most players aren't even going to finish the main quest. I feel the game aims to offer a place to walk in all kinds of directions and do things until we've had our fill (what Miyamoto stated as being lost in a world and finding your way around), not a straight line with a defined end goal (even though there's the Hyrule Castle carrot dangling in the distance, but it certainly feels a lot less enticing than other Zelda games which follow a basic hero's journey structure, and you're expected to reach the end as the inbetween steps are meaningless without the overlying context. Here, the structure starts off with you having already lost in the past - you can read that as the journey beginning again, sure, but also as it not being worth it to pursue in the first place?). For instance, my girlfriend is playing the game, and her stated intention is hunting/collecting mushrooms/navigating the world. She couldn't care less about Ganon, and will likely drop the game well before reaching him. I'd argue the game tries to accomodate that kind of approach much more than the traditional Zelda journey of "go forth and defeat the evil, hero" by making sure visual cues, audio cues and control feel are top notch for all steps of "picking up a mushroom", whereas in olders Zelda it was only a means to an end. It's still possible to go for the complete journey, mind, but I don't think the designers really expected players to complete *everything*, and most likely not in a two week timeframe (as evidenced by the
golden poop
(As to how I haven't experienced the dreaded repetition so far: the simple act of climbing/jumping/paragliding is fun for me. I sweep the camera around, look at the sky, and go "oh, that's pretty". That's enough, and it never gets old - but also keep in mind that I'm a big Super Robot Wars player who plays with animations on, so I'm used to doing the same thing over, and over, and over and over and over and... still finding them fun, which was kind of my point - people's tolerance for repetition is highly variable, depending on the enjoyment, context and meaning found in said repetition!)
(Also, fun (?) story: I play a lot of this game on my training bike, which makes for an excellent parallel between the mountain climbing Link does and my own efforts to keep my back intact :v VR without a headset, woo!)
They could've left the world even more open, so you'd get 'even more to explore!' - But an empty world isn't fun to explore (= No Man's Sky and other open world games), so their mission was to pack the game as full of fun stuff as they possibly could. And for the size of that world, they still missed the mark, at least that's what I felt after playing the game, that's all
As you say, if I were aiming to complete everything as my main objective, there might be stretches of land where I might just walk because I *did everything* there. But that also assumes I'll be bored of everything there is still to do (collecting mushrooms, for instance - you're assuming I'm only collecting those for crafting, not for the sheer experience of "I'm in virtual woods picking up mushrooms", which can still be as much fun on hour 90 than 1), and that discounts all of the memories I've made of that journey (going back over places I've trekked before, going "oh, I remember this place when I did THIS! Which seems to me to be an enormous component of this game - your mind wouldn't be empty going back, you'd be thinking back about the stuff you did, and either bask in it, or possibly try to find new stuff to do based on that?). That's also discounting the joy of looking at the game, something which appears to have been a huge focus here with all the individual zones, and the enormous works on the shifting colors of the sky, land, etc - if you get bored of those after 90h, you're likely bored of actual nature as well, which I can also understand (and to some extent sadly relate to very much, if I'm being perfectly honest), but that's not an issue with the game... that's an issue with your own perception of your surroundings. Basically, you're discounting the act of "being there" itself, which is at the core of games like Dear Esther - there's *nothing* there except the aesthetical pleasure of walking in a virtual world and looking at virtual landscapes, and sometimes, that's... enough?
For reference, my main issue with No Man's Sky isn't the emptiness of the worlds, it's actually the opposite: it's that it's packed with meaningless required stuff to do, whereas I'd have loved to simply be stranded there to walk and look around, and not have to worry about energy suit and all that crap. They had the framework for a giant walking simulator that they wasted by turning it into busywork - basically, a "game" :-D
(I'm being obviously facetious and provocative here, someone reading this feeling hot and bothered please don't jump at my throat based on that comment, discussion around NMS would need to be a lot longer and nuanced)
Here's the thing: I hate empty, non-interactive spaces for the sake of it. And I've yet to find a single one in BotW. Are you sure you're looking at it close enough?
The overworld in Twilight Princess was so bloody barren, unrealistic and lifeless, that I felt it was absolutely detrimental to the experience. Games like Morrowind already existed back then and showed how antiquated and behind the times Zelda's world was. It was a blatant hub area rather than a world, that had been stretched out too far beyond what was reasonable due to the misconception that size makes a world. Even though that's ridiculous when it only ever was a space to walk through to reach pathways at the end to transition to the next areas with overall two or three setpieces thrown in. Interactivity was limited to asinine puzzle item usage (bloody cog on rails?) and cutting down grass for rupees. Throw in some more or less useless caves and bug collecting for the sake of collecting for the sake of rupped for the sake of rupees being pretty useless in the game overall. The early 90s called, they wanted their game back. As honed as dungeon puzzles in Zelda have always been, they were stuck in the AlttP formula, which was a formula build around hardware limitations have been significantly shifted since.
Back to BotW: Every area has a destinct landscape and feels like a unique part of a world. A plain is just that: a plain. Same for a mountain. There's a size to it that does not make the lie that this is still just a miniaturized landscape pretending to be a world too obvious. All of it is neither empty nor barren, no matter where you go. Everywhere there is flora and fauna (each single piece of which has a use when farmed btw.), everywhere there are enemy encampments and even in the last corner, there is a minature puzzle. And all of it furthers game progression. Shrines increase survivability and overworld traversal times by means of hearts or stamina increase. Koroks help to increase inventory space. Enemies provide you with weapons (aka close combat ammunition in BotW), carfting ingredients or sellable goods and break up the pace of exploration with action. Or alternatively serve as landmarks themselves, in the case of Lynels and the stone giants (More different basic types of such overworld bosses would be very appreciated!). This is not Twilight Princess, which for me is the definition of barren and empty and unconvincingly life- and soulless. Not to mention the incidental storytelling at which BotW excels. More often than not, even the charred remains of a home in the plain tell a minature story by themselves, sometimes sporting the supposed enemies' remains nearby and providing some old weapons or maybe a chest.
The one scenario where the spaces could easily become detrimental in BotW, would be extensive backtracking. But even here, the game is expertly designed, as shrines and the Sheika towers, being among the main reasons you do explore the world in the first place for ingame reward, serve as teleport points just as much as as landmarks. In addition, near every stable there is a shrine. Have a longer way to travel in the world? Teleport to a stable, take your horse and significantly speed up travel time. Want to go somewhere and there's a tower nearby? Teleport to the tower, and glide down to quickly cover a lot of ground. That creates an exploration loop with every shrine and tower being a reward in terms of backtracking on top of any other ingame rewards they may provide.
Unfortunately, that loop only works if you actually like exploration and discovering the world in the first place. If you expect to play the game mainly to go from story sequence to story sequeuence or work you way through the antiquated overbearing Zelda dungeon sequence of yore (collect 12 keys, collect item, kill boss, repeat) you're missing out on its best quality and the world may well feel empty or barren to you. But then, you're expecting something the game isn't while disregarding the game's strongest quality: For the first time in the Zelda series, the game may claim to have created a convincing world. It's only empty or barren if you don't care to open your eyes and look at it. The former will make BotW look like the Zelda that gave you only four short dungeons with far too much space in between. The latter will make BotW the Zelda game, that had a convincingly sized world you explored, finding a couple of bears on a snowy mountain at its outer edges, snuck up on one, mounted and tamed it and while riding it beat up the animate Stalfos and Moblin skeltons that rose from the snow at night with a stolen Bokblin club. If the latter is "barren and empty" to you, that's not the game's fault, but that of your expectations. You're then in all likelyhood better off replaying the old Zelda games, which neither try nor succeed in buidling a convincing world by today's game standards and put the majority of effort into their dungeons instead.
The Dude
Member
I think something that has made the magic in this game work for me when it comes to travel is this, this game has a feeling like one very special game that I played for so many years... Everquest. EQ has travel moments that would truly make you feel like you were on a trip from Pittsburgh to Disneyland, they were long.. But In March of 99 and the months after I came to love lengthy travel times when the world felt alive.
Now fast forward and the silence, wind gusts etc... Gives me that feeling, so in my weird sense of nostalgia I sometimes feel a similar feeling here in zelda. Especially the larger structures as well, it makes me feel in really in an alive world and it's why it really works.
And I'm a pretty impatient guy sometimes in games, there are a lot of games with big worlds that just don't seem that alive and makes me impatient. But here it just works. There is enough size where I can move and still experience the journey, but also enough travel points to skip some... It's sort of in a perfect balance.
The world is huge tho, but it's captivating.. I had texted a friend just a few days ago about how this game including the climb able terrain has to be one of If not the biggest games ever. Witcher 3 and the ES games are up there as well, but BoTW is pretty special.
It just works, that's the key for me. It all just works.. My beefs with this game is no recipe book and frame drops, those are the overall issues I personally have.
Now fast forward and the silence, wind gusts etc... Gives me that feeling, so in my weird sense of nostalgia I sometimes feel a similar feeling here in zelda. Especially the larger structures as well, it makes me feel in really in an alive world and it's why it really works.
And I'm a pretty impatient guy sometimes in games, there are a lot of games with big worlds that just don't seem that alive and makes me impatient. But here it just works. There is enough size where I can move and still experience the journey, but also enough travel points to skip some... It's sort of in a perfect balance.
The world is huge tho, but it's captivating.. I had texted a friend just a few days ago about how this game including the climb able terrain has to be one of If not the biggest games ever. Witcher 3 and the ES games are up there as well, but BoTW is pretty special.
It just works, that's the key for me. It all just works.. My beefs with this game is no recipe book and frame drops, those are the overall issues I personally have.
I think it's what that guy from the Ghost Recon Wildlands interview called "minigolf world design" (incidentally, Wildlands isn't really above it, despite the map feeling fairly naturally designed, in terms of geography).
To me it's more of trying to make open world appeal to people who really don't like open world all that much, and it ends up disappointing everyone.
Zelda seems pretty decent in this sense, there's a lot of stuff, but the world is massive enough that elements end up fairly spaced out... i wish it would ease up on the constant spawn of monsters tho.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
The thing is, you are not there and there is a huge discrepancy between the experience of playing Zelda and walking through a forest there or doing so in reality. The virtual act being boring has no bearing on if the real act is boring too. For games, you are limited to two senses, visual and oral senses, whereas much more impressions reach you in a forest. Moreover, games are still designed, the behaviour of the same kinds of animals is not nearly as varied as you would see in nature, also interacting with living creatures if you manage to find some is completely different from interacting with a digital piece of art. Mushroom collecting is also very different. You have different kinds of mushrooms to consider, to identify yourself, with a real risk associated and a real reward (taste) associated. There are additional things to consider, like worms, size, environment. Finding mushrooms in nature is a great thing to do, because you get to eat them afterwards and you can use other senses rather than visuals to find mushrooms, you can analyse the environment to find locations where you can find more mushrooms and so on.
Also, do not forget to take the act of physical activity into account. I love hiking, I could do it for months and still not be bored of it. But the moment I travel just 10 minutes in a straight line in a game, I start to question the developer's respect for my time. I could keep the analog stick pressed forward for hours and do not feel the joy of physical activity at all. This is a central partof the experience with hiking though.
Also, I want to add that this "huge world with lots of empty space" approach - and Koroks or c&P enemy camps are not much more than empty space - is not the only way to go about when creating a believable, open world. A realistic one, maybe, but realism is not really a good guiding factor to come up with design decisions. Games should be better than reality where they can. I can only cite Banjo-Kazooie for this purpose. Sure, it has a level structure, but each level itself, is a fully open world, where you can go everywhere and tackle any main objective the way you want. Still, everything in the world serves a purpose, is carefully and uniquely crafted to make for a dense and rich experience. This same principle can be applied to fully connected open world games, but it amounts to more work and rules out ridiculous sizes like in BotW or XCX. I'd argue for the better, though.
It's amazing to see how close our valuations often are, especially with exceptions for the norm like SS and BotW. Indeed, I share your valuation of BotW a lot, and SS is my favourite Zelda game as stated often enough.
Thanks for your thoughts, but I'm not exactly sure what your point is in regards to the first paragraphs? I'm not arguing BotW and a walk in the forest are the same thing, as games necessarily are an abstraction (as you say, relying mostly on two senses) - I'll admit my shortcut above was a bit abrupt and I apologize, though I wrote it in context of the rest, which is an argument that I believe games are crafted to evoke specific feelings and experiences, and we should aim to critique them based on that intent, rather that what we would prefer mechanically in a general sense (basically actually "critique" vs a functional factory review of a mechanical product). I believe BotW aims to provide a contemplative experience (in general, and compared to previous entries in the series, which have a much clearer "linear" journey intent with defined beats), and my main point is that critiquing the "empty" world fails to take into account a number of sensory experiences (limited compared to "real ones", yes, but that's not the debate matter) that are, in my eyes, the main focus.
Basically, to say the world is "empty" because of the lack of meaningful interactions, we need to define said meaningful interactions in the context of the game. Some are arguing only Korok/Shrines count, as they're progression markers towards a completionist goal, I'm saying merely walking/climbing (and the associated button presses, even if they fundamentally mean "holding up for minutes at a time") are meaningful, and novel enough since each surface/plain is different and offers a different landscape to look at, and feels closer to the intended experience by the designers as I understand it (whether I appreciate it or not is another matter entirely, though obviously, to some extent and in large parts, I do, as does Thomas and many others here - but I don't think we're debating appreciation for the game, but the way it's built in regards to what it aims to accomplish, or at least how we understand it to be)
And BotW is better than reality where it can be. You won't walk through the wood in reality, take a stick and start beating up goblins in a camp you just happened to come across, stealing their weapons and treasure. You won't collect mushrooms and meat to cook a food that replenishes your health when brawling with a robot or to help you climb a mountain wall without freezing while otherwise your strenght would fail you.
If you can't appreciate this however, you're making the error of critizising BotW for its nature. If you want a more linear or condensed experience and don't value what BotW gives you, there's nothing BotW can do to make you enjoy it without changing its core nature, as it sets out to do a specific thing and does so masterfully, at least for today's standards. It's fine that you don't like the premise, as really, nobody has to. It's you not liking the premise however, not an inherent fault with the premise - otherwise you can bet that the "metacritic" would be very different from what it is now.
thomasmahler
Member
Ha, the same argument we're having here has been covered in this weeks PlayerOne Podcast:
https://youtu.be/1EeGcwHW_OQ?t=4274
https://youtu.be/1EeGcwHW_OQ?t=4274
thomasmahler
Member
Just imagine ALTTP in 3d and then extrapolate from there. I can totally see how you'd design something like that and if I'd be in charge of a Zelda game, I'd definitely not make the world as big as BOTWs, but ensure that every minute you spend in the game has amazing level design where you always have ways of interacting with the world somehow other than moving about.
I'd also never allow designers to block out levels or the world using a terrain engine. I very much think that that just makes you adapt bad habits.
Gotdatmoney
Member
My issue with fun per inch is that it ignores that some games actually make just the act of exploring fun in itself. Like open world games towards the end of 7th gen and during the middle of the 8th gen have been better at making worlds actually fun to navigate just to Navigate. Something like Xenoblade literally has not even a fraction of the variety that BOTW does but exploring in that game is so fucking fun that the "empty space" doesn't feel like it's "we ran out of money", it's "man I wanna see what cool shit is over there". Same with Xenoblade X.
I feel like with BOTW the issue is you have a massive game and so they have to be careful about gating away good shit in really hidden places. The Korok seeds could be used as access to things like durability up, movement up, range up. Like additional more permanent skills. That may be a way to increase their use. But I don't consider them repetitive. There are a lot of cool puzzles with variations. I have found over 100. Definitely done more than 10 unique things.
I feel like with BOTW the issue is you have a massive game and so they have to be careful about gating away good shit in really hidden places. The Korok seeds could be used as access to things like durability up, movement up, range up. Like additional more permanent skills. That may be a way to increase their use. But I don't consider them repetitive. There are a lot of cool puzzles with variations. I have found over 100. Definitely done more than 10 unique things.
By which time you will invariably arrive at a game with an unbelievable world, as experienced in every other Zelda to date.
Because when all of it is only crafted for the purpose of providing a special game experience, none of it will have a meaning beyond that experience. Take GTA, remove all space from its map that has no story purpose (most of it) and what you end up with does not feel like a living game world anymore, but like the walled of areas you find in previous Zeldas.
If you believe you can handcraft all level design for a specific experience in an open world game and make a believably sized or even feeling world with realistic resources, you're being delusional. If you want to hand craft everything, go linear and closed. If you want to go open, you'll have to allow for "down time" in the world. Spaces that are there, because they'd be there in an actual working world, not because you wanted to make a nice jump'n'run challenge, so you designed a street to provide the best J'n'R challenge it can, while it's utterly asinine when you ask whether anybody could live there.
I think that's what I don't understand: you assert that ALTTP is the right template for an open world game, when I see it the very definition of a gated progression world with deliberate design and pacing, ie: as far removed as possible from the whole reason of being "open world" in the first place? If anything, Zelda 1 would be the closest to BotW's design, and even that map had parts of it gated until you had specific powers and had done specific actions (and I'll just leave the fact that Zelda 1's map was the main inspiration behind BotW's approach and prototype).
I don't disagree that your design plan would probably make a very good game - I just think it's so far removed from what drives the specific fantasy that made the "open world" a genre in the first place that I don't understand how you can equate the two in the first place (and we're back to me saying I read this as applying a single unifying template to everything, even when it fundamentally opposes them)
(Though I'd agree about the more general point that hand crafted content beats procedurally generated stuff most of the time in my eyes :-D)
Gotdatmoney
Member
A Link to The Past is really not an open world game. You project ALttP in 3D and its just a regular 3D action adventure. OoT and Majora's Mask are really ALttP in 3D. There is nothing wrong with that but I disagree every second of ALttP is vastly exciting. I love the game but any interrior dungeon (as in inside mountains or caves) is a low point. The game guides you very deliberately. You can only break sequence a few times in that game.
Get to the dark world. Go to first dungeon because you need the hammer to move on. Can't enter dungeon without book. Can't enter dungeon without medallian A. Can't get medallion with Y power. Yhe game is entirely gated. You need to play it again.
Just FYI it's not very endearing to criticize another designer's work publicly. It just makes you look petty. You're both self-aggrandizing and reducing the work of others.
Be a professional and critique other games all you want, but don't do it on a public forum. It will never end well.
I do like wholeheartedly this new iteration of Hyrule. I think they managed very well to differentiate the places, even similar ones (e.g., plains), by having slightly different densities of items, enemies, stuff. Going on a certain path with very little showing of enemies means you're going to notice more insects, animals, the environment. Viceversa sometimes you're constantly in danger and can't appreciate what's around you.
One thing that doesn't click with me though is the scarcity of living people. I miss *big* sprawling cities that you can live in, with schools, police, army, many shops of different types, residential neighborhoods, as opposed to being an escamotage to host a couple of shops and quests. I just can't see an advanced technology such as the one that led to the creation of guardians and towers, being devised in this world.
One thing that doesn't click with me though is the scarcity of living people. I miss *big* sprawling cities that you can live in, with schools, police, army, many shops of different types, residential neighborhoods, as opposed to being an escamotage to host a couple of shops and quests. I just can't see an advanced technology such as the one that led to the creation of guardians and towers, being devised in this world.
thomasmahler
Member
I'm a huge Zelda 1 fan and know that game in and out and BotW is nothing like Zelda 1. Zelda 1 has a secret on pretty much every single screen, there's always some bush to burn down, some secret wall to explode, some wall to go through, some block to push, etc. - You ALWAYS on almost EVERY screen interact with the world in some way.
To draw a comparison, I'd argue that Dark Souls 1 is a lot closer to Zelda 1's world design than Breath of the Wild is. Dark Souls 1 has a hand-crafted world that's fairly open where you can try to go to wherever you want, whereas Breath of the Wild is yet another 'Open World Terrain-based Game'. That's why people already called it "Skyrim with a Zelda theme". The world often doesn't feel like Zelda, it very often feels like yet another Open World Game to me.
My argument is that open world games by the nature of that terrain-based stuff all suffer from the same bad core design issues of just encouraging designers to leave way too many open spaces full of emptiness in the world.
Yeah, people love open world games for some reason - but is that a good thing? GTA III was a phenomenal game, but do you look at that version of Liberty City nowadays and go "holy shit, that world is extremely well designed!"? I doubt it. I think 10 years from now when other devs have outdone Zelda in terms of Open World design, Breath of the Wilds world will look and feel very dated indeed and not hold up anymore, which isn't something you could say about games like ALTTP, Links Awakening, etc., which are just masterfully crafted, even by todays standards.
*your opinion .gif*
And a good thing that is. Zelda's world has been an antiquated threadbare excuse to shove puzzles down your throat for too long, rather than building an even halfway convincing world. Different strokes and all that.
You're still trying to argue that ArmA should really be Counter Strike instead, because you personally don't like ArmA.
thomasmahler
Member
Well, that's what this thread is for. Artists getting critique for their work is what helps push the artform. If an artist can't handle critique, he should find another job, really. Back when I was a character artist for the industry, I'd beg to get feedback from other great artists just so I'd learn more and more.
I'm a huge fan of Breath of the Wild, it's a great game, but this thread should be all about: "Okay folks, here we have a great game, but where does it fall apart and how could it have been an even better game?" - Those are discussions that are probably going on in a lot of development studios right now, since Breath of the Wild upped the ante.
Seeing this as me being petty or shitting on Nintendo is just silly. I love Nintendo, I'm inspired by Nintendo, but is Nintendo untouchable? No and they shouldn't be. I want to see Nintendo making fantastic games, we'll take some inspiration from them and try to make better stuff and in turn that'll inspire other devs again to copy from us, etc. That's how artforms evolve.
Critiquing someone elses work is NOT putting them down. It's trying to give helpful feedback in order to help them grow. It's sad if everyone is so touchy that we can't even help each other anymore to strife for something better because everyone's offended so quickly. Don't be offended for Nintendo, they'll be fine. And if they hear what fans want, they might just give you exactly that - Which Breath of the Wild has proven in spades
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
The first part was solely an overly long response to the suggestion that if you don't like keeping forward pressed, you will also be bored by real nature.
The second part: I think meaningful interaction is a challenge that was specifically designed by the designer to appear in this place and has a certain sense of uniqueness to make it more than busywork. So shrines would count, some stray standard enemies not.
Regarding intent: Intent is not the only thing you can evaluate a game against and if someone wants to make a huge barren wasteland (which Zelda is not, I don't want to claim that), where you can just walk around and interact in no other meaningful way, one may be able to achieve this perfectly, without it being good design. Zelda is aiming for certain feelings - which is very well executed - but also for certain interaction, where I see potential for improvement, mostly in those places that Thomas has pointed out.
Banjo-Kazooie's individual levels, Jak & Daxter, to a slightly lesser degree Zelda Majora's Mask, there are numerous examples in 3D even of this, just not recently.
I'd argue that the c&p enemy camps are worse than reality, but it's not really important, it was a point against "in reality you also have long stretches of emptiness"; I was just highlighting that it has no bearing on the game what is happening in reality. In fact, even though I don't agree with your valuation of enemy camps, they are actually supporting my argument, that it just is irrelevant what happens in reality for the game design.
After Ori 2, please do.
1. Zelda BotW also gates access to areas through items (in this case: Clothing / food) and requires you do some things before others. For instance, to enter Goronia you need to either cook burn-resistant food (which typically you get by progressing in a certain way), or to finish enough shrines and plan an optimal route to avoid the heat as long as possible in advance to have enough hearts to just survive the burn (which is what I did), or you need to feed insane amounts of healing items to get there. Either way, this is guarded by other kinds of progressions.
2. ALttP is partly linear, but this is not a necessity, look at ALBW, there you are not on a linear path, using the same overworld. The developers chose to implement some additional guidance and I feel this is typically a good choice, but it is not required. Also, I would like to highlight again Banjo-Kazooie's level design as a clear example that open levels in 3D can work without long empty stretches and without making a world that does not seem believable.
Gotdatmoney
Member
If you reduce BoTW's size to 1/4 I don't really see what you get out of it. Like the game is big but I dunno why people give it this impossibly huge tag. Like you can navigate the world on horse ar a reasonable speed and with fast travel moving around isn't tough.
My only real argument is they hide tons of Korok but should provide more incentive to look for them. A lot of the things in BoTW could be mixed and matched to improve the idea of looking around. But you reach a point where too much good shit is hidden too well and it's exhausting to look for it all.
There are 900 seeds. Even if you reduce the number to 200 and make the rewards better you either have to dumb down how you hide them so more people find them or you can't make them give anything extremely useful.
People are gonna be pissy if they miss the mirror shield because Nintendo dared to hide shit well. If they dont hide good shit why explore? It's a balance.
My only real argument is they hide tons of Korok but should provide more incentive to look for them. A lot of the things in BoTW could be mixed and matched to improve the idea of looking around. But you reach a point where too much good shit is hidden too well and it's exhausting to look for it all.
There are 900 seeds. Even if you reduce the number to 200 and make the rewards better you either have to dumb down how you hide them so more people find them or you can't make them give anything extremely useful.
People are gonna be pissy if they miss the mirror shield because Nintendo dared to hide shit well. If they dont hide good shit why explore? It's a balance.
Problem is that you pick a thing that's loved by some and hated by others and declare it as "falling apart". To you maybe, but to those who love that part?
Who's right now? Those who like that specific aspect for what it is or those who don't appreciate it in the first place? This is a highly subjective part, not inventory design where you can construct a relatively objective metric to measure of how effecient it is (e.g. average seconds and actions required to accomplish inventory related task).
Ah, see, I understand that a lot more, and even agree with it - I just don't feel BotW is the right example to point to, as I see hand crafted design just about everywhere I look, whether it be in the form of boulders to destroy, chests to fish, rare wildlife spawns, specific tree arrangements, callbacks to landscapes/visual cues of earlier Zelda games, etc (and yes, Korok Seeds/Shrines, though at this point, I'm just happy to find them them, it's not even about looking forward to their rewards). But yes, as a general rule of thumb, as said above, I agree that pure procedural doesn't hold my interest very much. We'll likely just agree to disagree!
Also entirely agreed, Thomas. Ripenen, I'm not sure who you were referring to when saying "both" - I'm taking it for me as I feel I've been vocal lately, but if that was your intent, I'm very sorry to hear that how you read this discussion. I tried to critique design viewpoints and not specific works, except for my humorous jab at NMS in regards to the wide discourse held on the game, which I took care to explain with the spoiler tag.
We need to refer to other works when debating that sort of thing, as they're the examples that serve to illustrate ideas and specific points.
I won't drag this out any further, but in regards to 1., you have a number of ways you can access that content (even going recklessly through without "necessary" equipement and surviving by the seat of your pants through several tricks like staying cold with weapons/specific places/ingredients, etc). I feel it's a bit disinginuous to argue ALLTP and BotW are gated to the same extent and through the same design principles, for the same purposes.
As for 2, ALBW cites the overworld, but its exact design (rock placement, enemies, etc) is the actual design that makes it entirely different from ALLP. It "looks" the same, it directly references it in many points, but it's built to allow for a much greater degree of freedom, tied with the object access system. Again, equating the two feels a bit like comparing apples and oranges.
I also really don't understand citing Banjo Kazooie (which to be clear/safe, I also love) in the context of a discussion about open-world design, as I feel they're aiming for very different objectives, but it looks like again, we'll agree to disagree
thomasmahler
Member
Well, I think it's fairly objective to say that if I just create a big terrain in Unity, pop a character in and let you walk through it without me also putting in cool ways of interactivity, you'd be bored out of your mind. That's what level design is all about, that's how games are built: You fight the empty spaces and try to make every spot as fun and interactive as possible.
Yes, there are some folks who enjoy 'empty' games like Proteus or No Man's Sky, but I'd argue that for the large majority of folks out there, running around in empty spaces isn't very fun and yes, Breath of the Wild did have quite a lot of empty spaces. Imagine I'd take a level from Mario 64 and just scale it up to be twice the size. Now you run around a LOT more and you need twice as long to finish the level - but that actually makes the game worse, since you're now dealing with a huge swaft of empty spots instead of tight level design that's been hand-crafted for the character and the controls in the game.
So that's where that leaves us. To a very small minority, just moving around in a virtual space might be fun enough, but since open world games are under heavy fire right now for often times being too big and not respecting the players time, I'd definitely argue that people still appreciate actual, good level design
And just as I said above, I've yet to find those empty spaces you talk about. I've seen varying densitiy in BotW, but never emptiness. If anything, I'd attribute every preceding Zelda game I've played with barren, meaningles and boring attempts at overworld design, whereas BotW is more of a master class of how to actually do an open world game without making the world feel empty and irrelevant. Seems to be down to personal perception of what's empty, doesn't it?
I've seen emptyness, non-nteractivity and poorly designed travel mechanics and devs not being able to get over themselves instead putting literal hour clocks in front of even bloody inventory management (ship transfer), because an immersion idiot brigade begged for it as opposed to something initially announced as instant. I've played Elite Dangerous.
So that's where that leaves us. To a very small minority, just moving around in a virtual space might be fun enough, but since open world games are under heavy fire right now for often times being too big and not respecting the players time, I'd definitely argue that people still appreciate actual, good level design
Just as they do enjoy actual, believable and good world design, rather than level tubes transparently designed to be puzzled through, dressed to look like a game world, but failing due to the transparency of it all. Only either type of "people" does not necessarily have to have an intersection.
Gotdatmoney
Member
How did you reach this conclusion? Open world games with far less density tham BoTW sell shit tons of copies. What actual objective measure are you using to define what people do and do not like?
I meant that Thomas was being both self-aggrandizing and reducing the work of others. I wasn't referring to you.
It's fine to critique a game, but throughout the thread this critique has been presented as a way to show how Thomas/Moon does design the "right" way with the fun per square inch or whatever and the comments about terrain tools leading to bad design habits. Suggesting someone could "Just imagine ALTTP in 3D and extrapolate from there" and somehow make it work as if that's easy is kind of insulting to game designers.
It's one thing to talk about this stuff with other game designers. Talk about it with your team at length. Have everyone play it and give a full deconstruct. A public forum of primarily video game fans and consumers just isn't a good place for this "critique".
Obviously you can do whatever you want. Just warning you it's not a good look.